May 2, 2013, Vancouver: Vancouver Not Vegas announced today that it will proceed with the action it filed in November 2011 in the BC Supreme Court challenging City Council’s approval of relocation of the Edgewater Casino to BC Place.

The decision to proceed with the action results from PavCo’s announcement that it has signed an agreement to lease with Paragon Gaming Corporation allowing construction of a casino on the BC Place site. There has been no public disclosure or public hearing concerning the terms of the Edgewater Casino proposal contrary to the BC Gaming Control Act Regulation.

Sandy Garossino, co-founder of Vancouver Not Vegas, says “this project has all the earmarks of a financial fiasco. Incredibly, the public knows even less about the Edgewater Casino proposal today than it did in 2010. Once again PavCo has announced a done deal to the public, only this time without even the courtesy of telling us what we are committed to.”

PavCo was going to lease the land to Paragon for $6 million per year. In September 2012, the Vancouver Sun reported that PavCo expects to reduce the rent to $3 million a year. The current proposal does not reflect the highest and best use of the site. Nor does it provide any indication of any return to the City.

Coalition spokesman, Ian Pitfield, says “no disclosure has ever been made to the public detailing what’s proposed now, nor has any community input been sought as required by the Gaming Act and the Regulation. Nobody knows what’s planned for the site, whether the City will lose money on it, how much public money will go into building it, or whether and how much the taxpayer will subsidize leases on public land.”

Bulletin: vancouver not vegas says new casino plan should go to public hearing
November 28, 2011

Vancouver Not Vegas group calls on Vancouver City Council to delay approving the casino relocation bylaw pending a court ruling on the bylaw validity and full public disclosure of the relocated casino plans.

[See Council agenda for Tuesday November 29
http://vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/cclerk/20111129/regu20111129ag.htm]

Sandy Garossino says “Paragon Gaming made it clear from the outset that the relocation and expansion applicationwas an all-or-nothing deal and there was no business case for a relocation alone. Under the Gaming Control Act, a relocation alone is effectively a new application which requires public consultation of the new plan”.

Lindsay Brown says “The public has been told we will have a mega-casino in the downtown residential core, but Council has effectively left the door wide open for the developer to build one by approving a relocation without requiring an amended plan to be submitted. We still have an approval in principle of 2 NFL football fields of casino floor, and tens of millions of dollars in public subsidy with no public disclosure and public hearing.”

“Council consistently treated this application as a re-zoning matter, and has not recognized the requirements of provincial legislation governing decisions around gaming licenses,” adds retired justice Ian Pitfield, a coalition supporter and retired BC Supreme Court judge. “The community was not provided with any particulars of the relocation proposal. It was only told about an expansion.”

Read the petition

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Our Supporters against the mega-casino

To see the list of all those who supported our 2011 fight against the mega-casino at BC Place, both individual citizens and organizations, click here.

For statements and letters from some of our many supporters, click here.

WHERE THINGS STAND:
We had a victory in 2011, but what we defeated was gambling expansion from 600 to 1200 slot machines. Soon after, Vancouver City Council nevertheless passed the building at its proposed massive size, ripe for future expansion. Now, in light of the 2013 Kendall Report which shows a doubling of severe gambling addiction in BC in only 5 years, we believe City Council must immediately institute harm reduction measures if it plans to allow the relocation and building of Edgewater Casino at BC Place Stadium, in easy reach of residents and young people. Proximity to casinos is a major factor in rising addiction rates.